Soup
by TheSpikyDurian
Summary: Or, The Adventures of Severus Snape and Ronald Weasley. AU!fifthyear. As per usual, there's been another apparent attempt on Harry's life. At breakfast, no less. With Hermione away for the holidays, it's up to our unlikely duo to figure out who's trying to kill the Boy-Who-Lived. And by duo, we mean Severus Snape and Ronald Weasley.
1. Chapter 1

01

Severus Snape sneered at the rows and rows of brats sitting in their little House groups, chattering away like monkeys about some mundane thing or other.

Ignoring the blue-twinkly-eyed twit – otherwise known as Dumbledore – smiling merrily from his side, Snape viciously attacked his meal with his cutlery. It was probably not a good idea, seeing as the meal in question was soup, and he only succeeded in splattering the edge of the table (the remaining drops had ended up decorating Dumbledore's already epileptic-fit-inducing robes).

Ignoring the mildly disapproving tutting – Snape was vaguely reminded of an upset chicken – emanating from the Headmaster's direction, Snape dropped the spoon next to the plate of soup with a dull _thunk_.

And then he took to glaring down the table of Griffyndorks.

Or more specifically, at a certain living mop of black hair and glasses. Snape was pretty certain that the Brat-Who-Lived was just hair and glasses attached to an idiotic little…

Oh.

Oh, Merlin. Not again.

...

Harry was blissfully unaware of the furious glaring from the teacher's table. Ron was blissfully unaware of anything other than the bread rolls he was digging into with extreme gusto.

Hermione… well, Hermione was off somewhere with her family, probably off skiing and enjoying herself over the winter break, enjoying the Voldemort-free-world.

Harry wasn't quite sure exactly what Hermione was doing, and neither was Ron, but since Voldemort was out of the way, thanks to fast Transfiguration and pigeons, the boys weren't too particularly worried about their friend. The worst that could happen to Hermione was if she encountered an accident while skiing.

Being the paranoid Boy-Who-Lived Harry was, he immediately assumed the worst, and thought of an avalanche.

It made Harry ill just to think about it.

In fact, come to think of it, the soup in his bowl was quite greasy, and it was upsetting his stomach. Maybe it wasn't just because he was thinking too hard. Harry scrutinized the soup, and wondered if there was something wrong with it.

He glanced at Ron, and was treated to a remarkable impression of a hog downing a trough full of slop.

Well, there was obviously nothing wrong with the soup – Ron was still alive, wasn't he?

Harry looked back at his own bowl, suddenly feeling very, very lightheaded. Like there wasn't enough air going to his head.

And then he started to cough.

…

The Boy Who Lived.

To choke on soup.

Soup.

 _SOUP._

 _Who, in Merlin's beard,_ Snape stormed down to the Infirmary, _chokes on_ _ **soup**_ _?_

Madame Pomfrey, the long suffering Medi-Witch of Hogwarts, had long since given up spending one day – was one day too much to ask for? – without anyone visiting the Infirmary.

Today had started out promisingly enough. No accidents in Potions. No accidents in flying. (It also happened to be a Saturday, but Pomfrey did not care about that.)

And then Potter happened.

The poor boy had been dragged in by a frantic Professor McGonagall, who, in her panic, forgot that she was a witch and instead of levitating the teen in, dragged him in, reminding Madame Pomfrey of a proud cat dragging in a dead mouse to show its owners.

Except there wasn't a cat. And she wasn't proud. And the 'mouse' wasn't dead.

Quite far from it, actually.

Potter was doing an impressive job of trying to hack up his lungs, to no avail, and Pomfrey only just managed to not roll her eyes, and instead, levitated the boy out of McGonagall's grip and onto a bed. The Medi-Witch flicked her wand, conjuring up a chair, and pushed the other woman towards it with a sharp command of, "Sit."

Then, the Medi-Witch turned back to her patient, drew the curtains and got to work.

Or at least, tried to, since the Infirmary was now filled with the low silky tones of the Potions Master – except instead of being the usual cool voice, it was now quite agitated.

"What's the idiot boy done now?"

Pomfrey concentrated on casting her spells.

"Harry's not an idiot!"

 _Focus_. Pomfrey dutifully ignored the argument between Snape and a certain red-headed boy. She could go back and throw them out later, when Mr Potter was breathing again.

…

"He has allergies." Snape repeated slowly, as if he couldn't believe his ears (to be fair, he didn't).

"Well," Pomfrey admitted, "just the one, actually."

"Potter has an allergy." Snape repeated again, as if he could somehow nullify the truth by saying it slowly and purposefully. "He has an allergy."

"Yes."

"To mushrooms."

"Yes."

"Which just happened to be in the soup." Snape, instead of rolling his eyes, closed them. Oh, of course. Of course the Bloody-Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Die had to have an allergy to mushrooms.

"Mr Potter will be fine," Pomfrey turned to Ron, giving him a kindly smile, "but he will have to stay overnight until I am certain he will not react any further to the mushrooms."

Ron could only nod, and smile back weakly at Pomfrey. "Er… right."

With that, the red-headed boy left the Infirmary without a second look.

Snape stared at the retreating boy's back, stunned. What ever had happened to the so-called Golden Trio? Wasn't the youngest Weasley boy supposed to at least act a little concerned about his best friend?

And where in Merlin's beard was Granger?

Now that Snape had the time to consider it, he hadn't seen much of the bushy-haired and buck-toothed member of the Golden Trio recently. In fact, there hadn't been much of a 'Trio' at all. Recently, it'd been the Golden Duo and One Mangy Thing That Granger Called A Cat.

And now, it was the Living Mop With Glasses and The Mangy Thing, if the animal in question sitting on Potter's bed was anything to go by.

Before the man could indulge in a happy little jig at the apparent fact that the Potter Brat's friends had abandoned him ( _Hah! Take that, Potter! See what I had to go through?_ ), he and a still slightly shell-shocked McGonagall were promptly propelled out of the Infirmary and into the hallway, accompanied with the excuse that the Potter boy "needs his rest, and _without_ the two of you staring at him!"

The Infirmary door closed with a click behind the two, and Snape straightened his robes before regarding McGonagall with a small sneer, as if to pretend that the two of them had not just been thrown out by a witch who was a good thirty centimetres shorter than him.

To her credit, McGonagall did little more than cackle in his face, completely unintimidated, before turning around in a dramatic whirl of robes and heading for the Great Hall.

Snape blinked. Then,

"Hey! I trademarked that move!"


	2. Chapter 2

02

Contrary to popular belief, Ronald Weasley did care about his friend's well-being. So much, in fact, that he'd done something quite unusual.

He _thought_.

Okay, that was probably quite unfair. No, no, a more proper way to say it was that he was thinking about food.

Well, that wasn't quite right either.

No, no, no. Ronald Weasley wasn't thinking about food. No, not at all. Ronald Weasley was thinking about why on earth _soup_ , of all things, was a breakfast item. And more importantly, since when did Hogwarts have mushroom soup on the menu?

For as long as he could remember (a good four years of his time at Hogwarts), the school had never served mushroom soup. Pumpkin soup, tomato soup, pea soup, yes, but never, never in a million years, had there been mushroom soup.

Until today.

And of course, it had been served at breakfast, where Harry could conveniently choke on previously mentioned soup while Hermione, admittedly the brains of the bunch, wasn't around to ensure his safety.

(Granted, Professor McGonagall had gotten the job done just as well, but Ron ultimately trusted Hermione more.)

Ron frowned, looking down at the parchment on which he had scribbled down the facts.  
One, Hogwarts didn't serve mushroom soup, especially not at breakfast.  
Two, Hogwarts served mushroom soup today. At _breakfast_.  
Three, Harry was allergic to mushrooms.  
Four, Harry knocked off Voldemort in a surprisingly simple way (it was a story best saved for another time, but the one thing that was common knowledge was that it involved pigeons - _lots_ of pigeons) and people, namely Death Eaters and other bigots with sticks up their butts, were upset about that.

The conclusion?

Someone was out to get Harry, by poisoning him with mushroom soup, and no one had even noticed.

 _Oh, Merlin. Oh, Merlin. Oh, Merlin._ The panicked thought rattled its way through Ron's head before bursting out the other side in a moment of clarity. Clarity as in pure and sheer panic.

…

Fred and George looked up as one at the scream that rattled the rafters of Gryffindor Tower. They looked at each other.

"One of yours?"

"Nah."

At that, the two shrugged, and decided that obviously someone else had thought it was a good idea to prank Ron with spiders.

In their defense, the last time their little brother had screamed with such volume was the time that they'd pranked Ron with plastic spiders.

…

Having released that moment of clarity, Ron again sunk back into the folds of invincibility that all teenagers seemed to believe that they possessed, and so, he continued to think.

Harry was in the Infirmary, and in no shape to investigate. Hermione was still busy in Hogsmeade. Crookshanks was a cat, and while Ron was worried about Harry, there were still things he wasn't willing to do – like teaming up with a bloody _cat_ of all things.

Besides, while Ron was sure that Crookshanks was a smart critter, the cat wouldn't be much help if he needed someone to back him up in a duel. That meant he needed someone skilled with a wand, someone who _knew_ how any possible suspects thought ( _cough, cough, Death Eaters_ ), and someone who was smart.

He needed someone who could sneak around, undetected, he needed someone who was a good detective, he needed someone who was a good spy, he needed someone who knew how Death Eaters worked. He needed… he needed…

He needed Snape.

Ron took a moment to process this.

He needed _Snape._

Oh, Merlin.

…

It was a Saturday – a sunny beautiful day (in spite of the cold weather and snow dusting the grounds of Hogwarts), a wonderful day, a _glorious_ day; mainly because Snape didn't have to deal with a bunch of brainless snivelling idiots on this day. At least, he wouldn't have had to deal with any adolescents at all, if it weren't for the incessant knocking on the door of his personal quarters.

Snape briefly wondered if he could pretend that nobody was in at the moment, and that by ignoring the knocking, whoever it was would go away.

Snape waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Well, whoever it was on the other side of the door must've either had knuckles of steel and were very persistent, or had bloody knuckles by now and were very, very stupid.

Sighing through his nose, Snape reluctantly left the comfort of his armchair, glided over to the door (even though no one was there to appreciate his visual smoothness), and flung it open with a sharp, "What do you want?"

The youngest Weasley boy, looking pale enough to challenge Snape's complexion, shook where he stood, but his fear did not stop him from blurting out, "It's the soup! Someone's out to get Harry with soup!"

Snape stared at the red-headed boy, and slowly regained his senses. "Potter has allergies." Snape stated calmly, fighting back the feeling of déjà vu.

"Yes, sir."

"To mushrooms."

"Yes, sir."

"Which were in the soup."

"Yes, sir."

"I thought Madame Pomfrey made that quite clear to all of us."

"Yes, but," Ron protested, "the soup, sir, the soup!"

"Yes, what about the soup?" Snape snapped, resisting the urge to rub at his temples. Potter had allergies to mushrooms. Mushrooms were present in the soup. The facts were straightforward – any simpleton would have grasped them by now. Was the Weasley boy slow or something?

"It…" Ron stammered, "it was served…"

"Obviously-" Snape began snarkily.

"…at breakfast." Ron finished in a whisper.

Snape froze. "What?"

"The soup was served for breakfast!" Ron sounded a little hysterical. "Who serves soup at breakfast?!"

Snape opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. It was a really good question – who indeed? The last time he checked, the house elves at Hogwarts weren't the type to suddenly change their menu without good reason. Which meant, Snape felt for sure, that something unusual was going on.

Although a deliberate poisoning did sound a bit far-fetched, Snape knew by now to not underestimate the going-ons in regards to the snotty Potter brat.

 _Snotter. Heh. That's a good one…_ Snape shook off the small detour.

Anyway, Snape knew to not underestimate the trouble Snotter could get in, if the issue with the pigeons and the Dark Lord was anything to go by. The hook-nosed man heaved a long sigh through his hook-nose as it became apparent to him that he was not going to be able to spend his Saturday in the privacy of his quarters. No, he was probably going to spend it gliding through the castle and hunting down whoever had changed the menu at Hogwarts to include mushroom soup at breakfast.

Snape flicked a glance at the old grandfather clock in his living quarters and consoled himself with the fact that it was well into the afternoon, and he wouldn't be forced to spend long on the issue.

 _Good_. Snape thought viciously as he strode out of his quarters and closed the door behind him before the nosy Weasley child could take a closer look inside. Without another word to the red-headed boy, Snape headed down the hallway, in the general direction of the kitchens. Half a second later, he realized he had a shadow; a freckly, orange-haired teenaged shadow.

Snape spun around, taking the time to discretely ensure that his robes flung out as dramatically as they could possibly be, and turned on very intimidating glare down at the boy. "What are you doing?"

"Following you. Sir." The Weasley boy stated the facts blandly.

"And why are you doing that?"

Ron thought for a moment. There were quite a few reasons why – Harry was his friend, and someone had tried to poison him. He wanted to see the culprit being caught. And since he carried the title of 'best friend', it was Ron's duty to make sure that the culprit was caught before he or she could make a second attempt on Harry's life. And so, Ron opened his mouth and answered, "Harry's my friend."

Snape stared at the boy, like he had grown another head. "Look, your insipid little notions of _friendship_ will not assist in this investigation-"

"With all due respect, sir," Ron interrupted, "Harry's my best mate, and I'm not going to back down. I'm investigating as well, whether you like it or not."

Snape considered giving Weasley detention for the rest of the term, but ultimately decided not to dish out the punishment, since handing out detentions these days – _thanks a lot, Albus_ – required copious amounts of paperwork. Snape simply didn't have that much time to waste.

"Fine." The Professor ground out and spun around, not turning around to check that the Weasley boy was keeping up.


	3. Chapter 3

_**AN: I know, I know, by the fifth year the Golden Trio know how to get into the kitchen. Let's assume that in this silly!verse (where Voldemort was Transfigured into bread and devoured by pigeons, in case anyone wanted to know), the Golden Trio have no idea how to get into the kitchen. For the sake of humour.**_

* * *

03

Ron had always thought of Snape as a fearsome, broody, sulky and generally moody guy who spent too much time in the dungeons and not enough time outside. Now, however, Ron supposed he had to add 'insane' to the list.

Snape was standing in front of a painting – nothing wrong with that – of a very nice bowl of fruit. While Ron agreed that the painting was indeed a nice one, he still held that it was no reason for one to start tickling the pear. Ron had wondered if the insanity was spreading when he could have sworn he heard the painted fruit giggling, before he remembered that he was a wizard, Snape was a wizard, they were in a magical castle and Voldemort had been defeated by pigeons.

The giggling pear became a door handle, and Snape tugged on said handle to reveal a room beyond the painting, a room which happened to be bustling with house elves.

Every single elf froze. Then every single elf turned as one to the two wizards in the doorway.

Ron gulped.

Snape got to the point rather blandly. "Why in Merlin's pants did you all serve soup for breakfast this morning?"

Before the elves could explode into a frenzy of self-flagellation at having displeased the Potions Master of Hogwarts, the dour man quickly added, "And don't even think about hitting yourselves. In fact, don't hit yourselves."

The elves froze in the act of reaching for the nearest object to bludgeon themselves over the head with, caught in the paradox of having already thought of hitting themselves, the urge to dole out their self-imposed punishment and the order to not hit themselves.

Ron, thankfully, snapped the elves out of their dilemma. "Wait! Wait! Just tell us where you got the mushrooms from."

"Mushrooms, sir?" One of the elves squeaked. "They were delivered to the kitchen in a basket."

Snape motioned for the elves to bring the basket, and a familiar elf rushed forwards with a wicker basket.

"Thanks, Dobby," Ron smiled at the elf, hoping to reassure the rest of the elves at the same time.

Dobby bowed a very low bow, and skittered away before Snape could do anything particularly violent. The elf needn't have worried, since the Potions Master was busy examining the mushrooms still left in the wicker basket.

"Shiitake."

Ron turned an incredulously stare at Snape. "What did you say?"

"Shiitake," Snape repeated with a great air of annoyance. "Don't make me repeat myself, Weasley. This is shiitake mushroom," Snape pulled out the offending fungus and held it up for Weasley to see, "obviously picked under the full moon last month."

"Amazing!" Ron breathed. "How could you tell just by looking at it?"

"Because it is slimy," Snape answered in disgust, dropping the fungus back into the basket. "And is quite rotten. This mushroom is a month old at the very least."

"Hang on," Ron looked at the basket. "Isn't that the type of basket we use in Herbology?"

"Well spotted, Mr Weasley," Snape sneered, looking pointedly at the tiny label on the basket, declaring it to be 'Property of Hogwarts, Greenhouse', "it's a wonder you haven't considered becoming an Auror yet."

Ron beamed.

 _Idiot._ Snape rolled his eyes, and continued. "Now, as I said, it's clear to me that this mushroom was picked under the last full moon-"

The elves looked like they very much wanted to say something, but none of them did, for fear of gaining another paradox to torture themselves over. Neither Snape nor Ron noticed, naturally.

"-and if you were half as observant as a flobberworm," Snape lectured on, unaware of the elves' more-bug-eyed-than-usual expressions, "you would have noticed that tonight will be another full moon, optimum time for picking mushrooms with magical properties. Come, Weasley, we have work to do."

…

The Bat of the Dungeons was a glorious, graceful wraith that swooped down on unsuspecting students with the ferocity of an angry hippogriff, but he found that there was a certain detriment to one's reputation if one was constantly followed by Ronald Bilius Weasley, who grinned and greeted everyone they passed with aplomb and annoying cheer.

That, and the fact that he currently had a basket looped on his arm did little to add to his fearsomeness. One could hardly look terrifying if one happened to be carrying a basket like some emo-versioned Red Riding Hood. Regardless, he sneered at one Neville Longbottom, sending the boy scurrying in the opposite direction.

"Weasley!" Snape snapped, whirling around in a dramatic twirl of his robes. "Stop following me. Meet me next to Hagrid's hut two hours before moonrise. I have preparations to make."

Startled, Weasley stumbled back. "What am I supposed to do in the meantime, then? Sir?" he added quickly.

"Do whatever it is teenage boys do in their spare time," Snape turned the corner and headed for the dungeons, leaving Ron behind.

"What the bloody _heck_ is that supposed to mean?" the boy wondered aloud.

…

Ron, without either Harry nor Hermione to entertain him, finished all his homework that day.

…

By nightfall, a steady flurry of snow was falling, and by the time Snape reached Hagrid's hut, Ron was already waiting, a great hairy drooling beast by his side.

And he was not talking about Hagrid.

"Down, Fang!" Hagrid grabbed the hound's collar, preventing it from bowling Snape over.

Somehow, Ron had the feeling that the Professor would not appreciate being covered in dog drool and snow. Most people didn't. While Snape was not considered 'most people', Ron had been correct in this regard.

"Keep that beast under control, Hagrid!" Snape looked at Fang with a mixture of fear and disgust – mainly disgust, the type he reserved for stupid teenagers – while Fang looked back with only the type of love and adoration a dog could exude.

"Hagrid says he's a great tracker," Ron explained, scratching Fang behind the ears, "and said that Fang'd be able to help us find our mushrooms."

"Tha's right," Hagrid grinned through his thick beard. "Why, on'y yesterday 'e 'elped Neville find-"

"Wonderful, Hagrid," Snape cut across the half-giant severely, "but Mr Weasley and I must be going if we wish to find our fungus before the full moon."

"Fungus?" Hagrid repeated, a small frown on his face as he watched the Potions Master and the red-headed Weasley boy go into the Forbidden Forest. "You mean to say yer looking for mushrooms?"

"Yes, shiitake!" Snape called back.

Hagrid frowned again, thinking that he'd forgotten something important. Like how shiitake didn't really grow in Europe. Or was it something about Neville Longbottom? Then, he shrugged and returned to his hut.

It probably wasn't that important.

Hopefully.

…

"Here, get its scent. Go find the mushroom," Snape held out the slimy mushroom to Fang, only for the animal to slobber all over it and his hand. With a cry of disgust, Snape flung the mushroom into the undergrowth.

Ron looked like he was trying very hard not to burst out laughing.

"Shut up, Weasley," Snape snarled nonetheless, gingerly rubbing his fingers together, feeling the slimy texture of the dog's drool. It felt surprisingly familiar, rather like the mushroom had originally felt back in the kitchen.

And then he realised that the mushroom may not have been old and slimy after all, but merely stewed in boarhound drool and heated to a bacteria-growing temperature in the warm kitchens.

The revelation did not make him feel any better.

"You disgusting beast," Snape growled.

"Oy!" Ron was rather offended.

"I wasn't talking to _you_ ," Snape rolled his eyes, and kept how he thought Weasley could be a disgusting beast in the Great Hall, devouring half the food on the tables, to himself. "I was talking to Fang."

Fang paused from sniffing around the clearing to look up hopefully at his name, tongue lolling out, drops of saliva falling into the pristine snow.

"Yes, I'm talking about you," Snape told the dog grumpily. "This isn't the first time you've been out to look for mushrooms, is it?"

Ron wondered if he should point out that Snape was talking to a dog, and if he should ask about how much stress the Professor had been under recently. Perhaps all those long hours of marking poorly written essays were getting to him.

Snape's eye twitched as Fang cocked up one leg at the foot of a tree. "Don't change the subject! Who have you been working for?"

Fang sneezed.

"Fine," Snape whipped out his wand, "I can do this the hard way just as well as the easy way."

Ron's eyes widened in horror, and he considered diving in front of Fang to take the curse Snape was no doubt going to direct at the dog, but instead, he managed a cry of, "No! Don't do it, Professor!"

Snape stared at the Weasley boy, and wondered what was wrong with him. Perhaps it was the stress of the upcoming OWL exams. Or maybe the expectations of living up to being friends with the Know-It-All and the Imbecile-Who-Wouldn't-Die had proven too much and Weasley had finally snapped.

Snape held out his wand, and demanded, " _Point Me, Mushroom._ "

Ron blinked.

Snape couldn't care less if the boy had lost his mind, but since he was a teacher and under certain obligations to look after the students, he felt compelled to tell Weasley, "Madame Pomfrey… Madame Pomfrey offers free counselling, you know."

Ron's blank look became one of understanding as he nodded. _Of course_ , Ron realised, _that's the Professor's way of saying he has help. I needn't worry._

The wand pointed to a direction in the woods, and Snape glided off, "Come along, Weasley, this way-ack!"

Ron stared. For one second, Snape had been heading away from the clearing. Then, there'd been a snapping of tree branches, and the Potions Master had disappeared in an undignified tangle of limbs.

"Snape?" Ron ran forwards. "Professsor- Merlin!" Ron stopped short at the clearing, just at the sharp drop leading down and further into the Forbidden Forest. Clearly, the Professor had been caught unaware, and taken a tumble down the drop. Ron knelt down, squinting into the darkness. "Professor Snape?"

Fang, who had finished with his business at the tree, turned to join the excitement, bounding towards the red-headed boy. Fang was not very good at English. He knew the words 'Fang' and 'food' – often exclusively in that order – and that was about the extent of his knowledge. Therefore, he had no idea he was about to send both himself and Ron over the edge.

Ron turned in time to be hit by fifty kilograms of fur and drool, and they followed where the Potions Master had went.

Down, down and down.


	4. Chapter 4

04

For Snape, his world suddenly became one of rolling head over heels repeatedly, smashing through the undergrowth until he finally rolled to a stop. Snape blinked, his vision finally focussing on the brown object in front of his hooked nose.

(It was not a present from Fang, thank Merlin.)

The shiitake mushroom sat comfortably in the mulch, looking very much at home, in spite of the cold weather and the fact that Hogwarts was not in Asia.

"Someone's been casting heating charms on you," Snape muttered, propping himself up on his elbows, taking a closer look at the mushroom, uncaring that he was talking to himself. "Who's been culturing you?"

The question wasn't one of those 'Why me?!' questions directed at the universe, but rather one of those quiet little ones that one asked oneself occasionally, such as, 'should I cut my hair?', or 'I wonder what outfit I should wear today?', but it certainly wasn't one that required an answer from the universe.

The universe sent one anyway, to Severus Snape.

Ron and Fang tumbled down the slope, landing on top of the unfortunate Potions Master, and sliding forwards a good half-a-metre before stopping.

"Snape? Oh, there you are!" Ron grinned brightly. "I thought I lost you for a moment there."

"Get the f #$ off me!" a muffled voice replied.

Ron hastily got to his feet, dragging Fang with him. "Did you find the mushroom?"

Snape spat out a mouthful of the aforementioned fungus as he crawled to his feet. "No," the man snarked.

"Oh." Ron looked genuinely crestfallen.

"Idiot," Snape muttered, rolling his eyes. He raised his voice, "Of course I did, then you had to come and destroy all of them."

"I did?" Ron looked at his feet, and found scattered bits of the mushroom on his shoes. "Oh. So I did. _Reparo_ ," Ron stated clearly, pointing his wand at the mushroom.

Nothing happened.

"That spell doesn't work like that, you dunderhead," Snape pulled out his wand, which had miraculously survived his fall, and muttered a spell under his breath. A moment later, mushrooms flickered into existence.

Fang sniffed the mushrooms, dispelling the glamour momentarily before the image of the mushrooms returned.

"Professor?" Ron looked at Snape. "Now what?"

"Now," Snape answered, making his way to a fallen log and seating himself on it, adding a glamour to himself so that he appeared as an ugly tree stump, "we wait."

Had anyone bothered to check in the small clearing where the shiitake mushrooms grew in the Forbidden Forest, one would have found three tree stumps – an ugly one, a panting one, and one with an odd growth of red fungus on its top.

…

Two hours later, when the moon had risen, Snape was beginning to wonder if he had been wrong about the mushrooms being picked under the light of the full moon.

"I'm freezing my arse off," the tree stump with the red fungus growth muttered.

Truth be told, Snape had the feeling – or rather, no feeling in his backside – that his arse was probably on the verge of developing frostbite also. They'd spent the better of two hours sitting in the damp, freezing cold with nothing to show for their troubles while the Snotter boy was in the warmth and comfort of the Hospital Wing. As usual, the privileged brat lived in comfort while the unworthy peasants beneath his notice suffered for his safety. Snape had just about had enough – granted, this time it probably wasn't Potter's fault that he'd choked on mushrooms – and the usually cold blooded spy decided that when Potter's assassin showed up to pick the mushrooms, he was not going to curse the assassin.

Oh, no, Snape was going to take a more physical and personal approach. He was going to bring down the assassin with his bare hands. There could be certain satisfaction found in doing things the Muggle way.

Something rustled in the underbrush, and Snape broke off his train of thought. The ugly tree stump quickly shushed the fungus infested one. "Quiet! Someone's coming."

Like a spectre, a figure unfolded from the shadows of the night, a lit wand held aloft like a lantern and a wicker basket in the other hand. It headed right for the mushrooms bathed in the moonlight.

The figure stooped, scooping fruitlessly at the mushrooms, first in puzzlement, then frustration when its fingers trailed through the illusion.

"Now, Weasley!" Snape roared, springing from the undergrowth and tackling the unsuspecting mushroom picker. "Cowabunga!"

"For Harry!" Ron followed in Snape's footsteps.

Fang leapt into the fray for the sake of dogpiling.

Snape had not bothered to lift the glamour charm, so all Neville Longbottom saw, much to his terror, was three stumps flying from the ground to attack him.

…

Albus Dumbledore paused in the middle of the sentence he was reading. He lowered his weekly copy of _The Quibbler_ onto his desk, ears trying to hear if they could pick up the noise again. He glanced at Fawkes, who trilled softly.

"I don't suppose you heard that? It sounded rather like Neville Longbottom screaming, I must say."

Fawkes trilled and preened his feathers, in a bird's equivalent of a shrug.

"Hm," Dumbledore raised his newspaper with a shrug of his own. "My hearing must be going."

…

Five very miserable, freezing cold and wet figures dragged themselves through the Forbidden Forest, back in the direction of the castle.

Through the stammered story-telling of Longbottom, Snape had gathered that the boy had discovered the mushrooms last week, after he took the same tumble Snape had one day, and recognised the mushrooms to be edible shiitake mushrooms. Longbottom had then picked the mushrooms, and returned to Hogwarts with the intent of giving them to the kitchens, which he had.

On the way, he'd been waylaid by Fang, who'd taken a liking to the mushrooms and managed to lick three of them before Longbottom could stop the boarhound.

The elves were all too willing to cook the uncontaminated mushroom into soup, and serve it.

"But I didn't know Harry was allergic to shiitake!" the boy had wailed in guilt, when the Potions Master disclosed why Potter was in the Hospital Wing. "And I didn't know they'd do such a barbaric thing as to serve soup for breakfast!"

It was clear to Snape that this had all been a case of an overactive imagination, courtesy of Weasley (and admittedly, himself).

That was probably why he didn't assign a week's worth of detention to both Weasley and Longbottom. Instead, he let them off with a stern warning (read: Roaring Rampage of Lecturing), and retired to his quarters with the intent of putting this very much wasted and pointless Saturday behind him.

 _At least the Know-It-All_ _will return tomorrow,_ Snape consoled himself with the knowledge that the Granger girl wasn't as stupid as Weasley or Potter.

…

Sunday lunchtime found the return of Hermione Granger, who was welcomed back enthusiastically by the other members of the Golden Trio. Ron willingly shared the news of his adventure from the previous night, while Neville apologised profusely to Harry (and was promptly forgiven on the condition that he would refrain from picking more mushrooms).

All in all, it was a good lunch.

And Snape hated it. The cheer spread throughout the entire Hall, and Snape hated every bit of it. Hunched over his plate of crunchy peanut cornflakes – apparently, the elves were trying out new foods – Snape grouchily stirred the no longer crunchy cornflakes, ignoring the joyful buzz among the lunch-eaters.

The hall fell suspiciously silent as the sounds of the Granger girl choking and coughing echoed across the Great Hall.

A swarm of panicking Gryffindors surrounded the girl, each offering shrieks of panic and advice – with Potter demanding for an EpiPen, and screeching something about peanut allergies – until a very rattled McGonagall dispersed the crowd and dragged Granger, still choking and coughing, out of the Hall and in the direction of the Hospital Wing.

Ron caught Snape's eye across the Great Hall and mouthed, _They served cereal for lunch. You know that's not right_.

"F $k, no!" Snape declared, standing up so suddenly that his chair fell over, much to the surprise of Dumbledore, who was wearing what appeared to be Pollock-inspired robes. "F $k this sh#t! Albus," he turned to Dumbledore, who looked back rather serenely for someone who had just been treated to horrendous language, "I don't care that winter break is almost over, I don't care that classes will start tomorrow, I'm claiming all those days off that I never claimed before, and I'm taking a vacation!"

With that, Snape fled the Great Hall, leaving a stunned silence behind. Students and teachers stared at each other alike, surprised at the Potion Master's declaration. Then, out of the silence, Ron stated mildly, "Don't worry about him. He has a therapist."

This statement did not reassure many of the Great Hall's occupants, so Ron continued on blithely,

"I hear Madame Pomfrey offers free counselling."

THE END


End file.
